Life with an eye on the weather
Location: Riverside Rd near Mosgiel
Owners: Allan and Helen Kirkland
Area: 290ha effective
Production: 2009/10 season 220,000kg milksolids (MS) (2008/09 season 236,000kg MS)
Herd: 525 Friesian and Friesian/Jersey, breeding worth (BW) 111, production worth (PW) 139
Dairy: 50-bail rotary built 1985
At the start of June, Allan Kirkland had 84ha under water, 7ha of it in kale that had been ready to eat, and all of the stock at home.
But things were not as bad as they usually were when the Taieri River is in flood and the local Owhiro Stream tops its banks - for the first time in Allan's life, they were not milking when the farm was inundated. He dried the herd off on May 14.
An easterly rain always has Taieri farmers watching river levels. It was an easterly that brought the rain in 1980, almost 30 years to the day, when the Taieri peaked at a whopping 2526 cumecs, the highest in 42 years of records. Easterlies brought rain in 1993, 1994, and 2007 and in the last week of May this year, when the river reached 1200 cumecs.
"When there is an easterly and it's raining you don't sleep much at night," Allan said.
Luckily this time, as with the past few floods, the Taieri near Sutton and further upstream at Waipiata was almost unaffected by the rain. When the river becomes swollen in the back country then a flood downstream, as it did in 1980, can last for weeks.
Habits of river
Allan knows the habits of the river, and also where every high point is on his 290ha effective farm Elm Grove. So did his father and his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather John Kirkland who bought the land in 1853. He arrived from Lanarkshire in Scotland with his six-year-old son William. His wife and young daughter had died of cholera on the voyage.
Back then, Taieri farms ran a mixture of sheep and cattle, milked cows and raised pigs, and grew potatoes, oats and wheat. However, the last few generations at Elm Grove have stuck mainly to dairying, producing milk both summer and winter. Until, that is, it came time to renew the winter milk contract a few years ago and Allan and his wife Helen decided enough was enough.
"I'd been doing winter milk since 1985 and my father since the late 1950s," he said.
"But I always knew I wouldn't milk in the winter forever."
A good summer payout forecast made the decision easier.
"I thought if we don't give up now, we never would."
It was also an opportunity to simplify management and for the couple to continue their diversification into other business areas.
"It also makes the place more attractive for a sharemilker, if we ever wanted to go down that track."
The following season the milk price dropped. However, the farm had always been run "lean on inputs", with all the stock grazed on the farm year-round, and the decision turned out to be the right one.
Inputs of nitrogen (N) are kept to the minimum and about 36ha of kale is grown for winter grazing. Baleage and silage is made on the property. Cultivation and all the tractor work is done by the farm staff of four.
Allan himself hasn't stepped into the dairy all season.
"In past years, I helped out with herd testing but now I often spend several hours a day in the office. I don't miss milking, but I would like to be outside more, seeing the things that need to be done."
Breeding is LIC Premier Sires although for some years he selected A2-A2 bulls when possible.
"There's still a lot of debate about the health benefits of A2 milk but, after the findings of a European food commission investigation was released, I have reduced my emphasis of A2 bull selection."
All up, there have been four dairies on the farm. The first one is long gone and then there are the old walk-through and the herringbone his father built. The herringbone at the back of the property, near the homestead, was used by the winter herd and has meal-feeding equipment. Right next door is a 100-bail wintering barn from where the cows can access the silage stack whenever they want to.
The 50-bail dairy, which Allan built in 1985 on a high ridge round the corner on Bush Rd, was one of the first large rotaries in the South Island. The ridge went under in the 1980 flood but only just, and there was good access to and from paddocks, which is why the site was chosen.
This time too it has come through unscathed, although the paddocks near it have not.
Of the kale that is under the water, only the tips can still be seen.
"It withers up and dies pretty quickly when it has water around it, but hopefully we can eat some of it before that happens," Allan said.
Baleage worry
In winter, there is more of a chance that the grass won't rot, even if it is under water for a few days. However, Allan isn't sure about the baleage.
Keeping power up to fences, the ones that are still standing, is also a hassle, especially when half of them are submerged.
Farmers in the area are planning to discuss the latest flooding with the Otago Regional Council.
"This area is not supposed to flood like this," Allan said.
"The flood scheme was built in the late 1980s for a 100-year flood in the Taieri, but this is water from the Owhiro Stream which keeps on flooding our land now."
Where floodwater goes on the Taieri is controlled by a complicated system of gates, earth banks and pumps. Ponding areas have been created to save townships and Dunedin International Airport, but the workings of the scheme in the latest flooding have concerned many farmers.
"It's a little bit frustrating."
But it's nothing like the 1980 flood, when a helicopter hovered over the Kirklands' house to evacuate stranded people, and in earlier floods before that when the only way to get the milk to the factory was by boat.
Back then, river levels could only be monitored by telephone calls to the regional council. Now a website shows real-time flows at multiple points in the catchment, making planning and moving stock a lot easier.
Production down
Ironically, milk production this summer was down in dry conditions.
But in the future, it will all be the worry of Allan's and Helen's third child and only son William John Kirkland. He has returned after completing a B Com Ag at Lincoln University and at present is planning to meet up with friends in Europe.
In the meantime, he's helping out on the farm and playing rugby for Taieri. Of his three sisters, one is a solicitor in Auckland, another is working in retail in Dunedin and the youngest is at the University of Otago.
Before the flood, this winter was full of possibilities for the Kirklands.
So far this year, the couple have spent two weeks in Las Vegas, lured there by friends, and the other night Allan's wife got the atlas out and started thinking about where to go next.
"I can't see us going away for six weeks or more at a time, but two or three weeks here and there is quite good," Helen said.
"It's easier now that the children are older, but you never fully escape from the farm."
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